The Pedants' Society

Custodians, since 1847, of the apostrophe; the semicolon; the subjunctive; and of certain other small matters not adequately attended to by the world at large.

The Society maintains a Register of Fellows, conducts an irregular correspondence with the press, and admits new Fellows by application. It does not, as a rule, explain itself.

Apply for Fellowship — from £9

Admission is by preliminary examination (approximately one minute), followed by payment of the customary fee and the issue of a typeset Certificate of Fellowship, suitable for framing and for the settling of household disputes.

Living with a pedant? The Society accepts nominations on a partner's behalf. The certificate is dispatched for presentation by the giver; the Society's covering note does not, as a rule, name the informant. See the Curator's note On Matrimony and the Society, which the Society offers as evidence that this ends well.

The Register

The complete Roll of Fellows is maintained publicly. The Society also maintains a separate page for those struck off, on the principle that the cautionary value of the Register is bound up with the visibility of its consequences. Fellowship, once conferred, may be withdrawn; the Society finds that this is widely held to improve it.

Official Positions

A selection of the Society's standing rulings on matters of language and conduct is reproduced on the Official Positions page, including the Express Lane Travesty, the Rationing of the Exclamation Mark, and the Tragedy of "Paninis." The Compendium is being digitised slowly.

The Archive

The Society's records are being digitised by the Curator, by hand, on a typewriter, at approximately fourteen words per minute. The Archive presently offers: the minutes of seven notable meetings, including the Oxford Comma Schism of 1893; a tour of the Anteroom; the four Standing Lists, one of which has been empty since 1847; the Society's Follies; the Honorary Foreign Fellows, of whom one declined so graciously that the Society framed the letter; and certain commendations the Society did not seek. The projected completion date of 2061 is regarded as ambitious but achievable.

The Errors Register

Errors found in this website may be reported to the Errors Register, where they are adjudicated, in due course, on Tuesdays. The finder of an accepted error is recorded in the Register in perpetuity. The Society regards its critics, in this respect, as unpaid staff, and is grateful.